Instance Gratification 29: Into the world of The Continent or Geralt of Rivia

Instance Gratification is the return of one of our premiere video outings. Originally featuring the cast of founder bloggers thrashing World of Warcraft dungeons and viewer runs of Dungeon & Dragons Online, the reinvigorated column heads to the realm of the Twitch channel. Come join us every Tuesday for dungeon dives, solo attempts and general loot hoarding in your favorite games.

I’ll be the first to admit that The Witcher III: Wild Hunt isn’t the most applicable game for this livestream show. I mean, it’s not even in our extensive MMO Game List and that’s because it lacks any online component to speak of. That being said the entirety of the game resides on a single instance; my PC. So single-player RPGs are the most instance-based dungeon adventures possible. Right? Well, that’s the case I made to the team when I pitched Geralt’s first foray into Lore Hound during this week’s Instance Gratification.

The fact of the matter is that The Witcher, the entire franchise, is one of the greatest RPGs of recent years. That’s not an opinion, scores and reviews back it up. An opinion would be more akin to one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Based in fact, but far less rigid. Having read the first compilation of short stories that launched the Polish fantasy franchise and the first novelization I was easily drawn when CD Projekt Red, a company I was already a fan of, adapted it years back.

New to the universe of Geralt of Rivia? Don’t remember where it left off? Or, perhaps more importantly, which choices you selected in The Witcher II? Fear not, not only can you reselect these, if you, like me, can’t find your save file, but you can opt to change them. Gamespot has an excellent summation to address all of these concerns.

Branching stories, monster hunting, mature content – yes, that includes sexual content – combat choices, beautiful graphics, replayability and a deep bestiary keep me coming back for more. The only hang up has actually been locating the game – a physical purchase includes a copy of an all-new graphic novel – rather than heading to the excellent Good Old Games or better known Steam for a digital copy. This conundrum simply means that’ll I’ll be running home to initiate the download in hopes of kicking off our fantasy foray in time for the 7:00 PM EST start time. Wish me luck.